The housecat (Felis domesticus) is often chosen as a pet because of its intelligence and personality. The cat's intelligence allows training and the ability to adapt to the human household. The adaption of the cat requires the presence of humans who form the cat's family group, much the same as the family group of animals found in the natural state. The physical household and the yard areas form the cat's territory and is shared with the human family group. The responsibility attached to cat ownership includes the provision of proper nutrition, clean and detached litter areas, and comfortable sleeping, resting, or watching accommodations.
The provision of a resting and eating facility in a room of the host house establishes the area limit to the cat as far as these particular activities are concerned. If within the same area a "cat box" is included, the entire area is considered to be feline territory and may be a source of objectionable odors as well as food and water spillage. The most objectionable problem is the psychological torment of the owners and the behavioral non-compliance of the cat when efforts are made to change or eliminate the undesirable features. Odor control is an especially vexing problem for which a variety of solutions have heretofore been proposed such as litter boxes, specially treated sand or pellets for use within the litter box, extremely pungent and heavily scented air freshners and the like.
Each of the prior solutions, while addressing the immediate problem at hand with some degree of success, also give rise to new and sometimes more serious problems for which no solution was presented. For instance, a soiled litter box could appear as an attractive sand pile to an unwary toddler, the chemicals employed to treat the sand or pellet filler could cause adverse reactions upon ingestion by or contact with a sensitive human and heavily scented air freshners are well recognized as a source of allergenic reactions.
The present invention is directed to the solution of the foregoing problems in a manner which provides a positive overall psychological impact on the feline having the use thereof, by providing a lair containing all the necessities as well as a resting, climbing, and watching platform which provides interest and physical activity to the occupant. By the provision of an activity area to prevent boredom, the concealed lair for resting and observation provides an interesting pastime that reduces or eliminates the tendency for destructive behavior often found with animals left alone in isolation.